The Exiles Return (25 page)

Nina lifted her head. ‘Oh, Father, you have been spying on me!’

‘No, Princess, mere chance, and then my own inevitable conclusions from that one instance. You are in trouble, my child, and you are very dear to me. As you would not come to me, I have come to you. You say, now, you want to talk to me. Why didn’t you come to confession?’

‘I cannot come to confession, Father, because I do not repent, and I do not intend to repent. I should be deceiving you if I accused myself of sin, for myself I cannot deceive. In my heart I admit no sin. If you saw me kneel at the Virgin’s altar, it was not in distress or in contrition that I prayed to the Mother of Divine Love, but in gratitude and in joy. If I told you this in the confessional you would impose a penance on me which I could not perform, nor would I ask for an absolution which you could not give and which I am not prepared to receive. Oh, Father, I do not want to speak to you as a priest but as a friend. Since childhood you have been a friend to me and more than a friend, both father and mother to me, tender and kind. Will you be a friend to me now? I have no one else.’

‘These are wild words, my child, words which it grieves me to have heard from you, especially from you, of all my spiritual children. But I am your friend, as I always have been and always shall be. You may speak to me as to a friend.’

‘Thank you, Father. But why do you say “you, especially
you
, amongst all others”? What is there so special about me? I’m just a woman like all other women!’ Her voice quavered. She was taken aback by the passion that had risen in her throat in making this unspectacular assertion and she tried with all her strength to control it.

Father Jahoda said very evenly without a trace of surprise or reproach: ‘What you mean is that you are in love with Professor Adler.’

‘I love him.’

‘Of course, it was inevitable. But you must remember that many weeks ago, very soon after he joined the Institute, and also several times since, I warned you about the dangers of seeing too much of a married man.’

‘I know you did. You advised me to resign from my job. I thought it was a preposterous idea. Just as it was getting interesting.’

‘
Because
it was getting interesting. Do you remember what I said?’

‘Yes, you said that continued proximity between a man and a woman, however neutral their attitude to each other, however disinterested their intentions, would inevitably breed undesirable emotions. I was very much upset when you said that. I felt that you were trying to detect impurity where none existed. I felt you were insulting a man who just did not happen to share our faith, because he was a Jew. I was determined to continue to work for him, to prove you wrong.’

‘You were very sure of yourself.’

‘I didn’t think of myself at all. I thought only of the work. It had been such dull routine drudgery throughout the years. But
he
made it interesting. When I helped him, he explained things. He was also doing some research of his own which was very interesting. And he made notes about it in English. I transcribed them for him. No one else knows any English at the Institute except me. We never spoke a word about anything but the work, and that was all there was between us, all the time – until…’

‘Yes, my child, until. Such a very old, threadbare device of the Eternal Tempter, known to those whose business it is to study him during all the centuries of Our Lord. But you, with all your intelligence, and in spite of my warnings, were taken in!’

‘Taken in? No Father, I knew my own feelings, I had to admit them to myself, I admit them to you, but I can assure you I never showed them. But he, he did nothing, not by a word, not by a gesture, not even by a glance to attract me. Why should he? How could he? It never crossed his mind. I think he was scarcely aware of my presence. I had nothing to fear from the Tempter, I was perfectly safe. I have never attracted any man.’

‘You were very sure of your own virtue.’

‘No Father, I have never thought myself virtuous,’ her voice dropped to an almost inaudible whisper, ‘only ugly.’

Father Jahoda made a slight movement with his right hand, his smooth white hand, which he unclasped from his left and stretched forward as if intending to touch her. Somewhere beneath his armour of discipline, in the core of his common humanity, a nerve of compassion had suddenly quivered. But he controlled his gesture halfway and re-clasped his hands.

‘You were in even greater danger than I anticipated.’

‘Why?’

‘Because you set yourself apart. You compared yourself, brooded over your appearance, I suppose, in your looking glass and rebelled against what you saw.’

Nina shuddered. How could Father Jahoda possibly guess at those secret, entirely private and solitary moments when, emerging from her bath, she did force herself to contemplate her body, her compact, four-square body, the width of her shoulders equalling the width of her hips, her drooping breasts with the downward-pointing, dark brown nipples, her short thighs and hard, rounded calves. A healthy body, she would try to console herself, a strong, sturdy one without a flaw or disfigurement, but such a disheartening one. The lacklustre, faintly yellowish colour of her flesh disgusted her, though her skin was smooth and sleek to the touch when she stroked herself with the palms of her hands – but no one would find out how smooth and sleek it was, for none would want to touch.

‘If I did look in the glass, I had no reason to accuse myself of vanity. That at least was not a sin that burdened my conscience. And a woman does not need a looking glass in this town to tell her she is ill-favoured. She can read it in the eyes and feel it in the behaviour of every man she meets and may even be told so to her face.’

‘You have not accused yourself of vanity, but you should realise that you have been lacking in humility. You are not beautiful, my child, but not all women can be beautiful. Neither are you what you yourself have so drastically called “ugly”, and certainly not disfigured. Yet there are many such in the world and even they must bear with themselves. As it happens, I observed when I last saw you what almost amounts to a transfiguration in your whole appearance, a light in your eyes, an alertness in your movements, the source of which I have not found it difficult to surmise. Your Professor has responded to your emotions and you now believe he shares them. That, apart from the fact that you have been keeping aloof from me, is the main reason why I am here this evening.’

‘So you have come to tell me to give up my love! I cannot, I will not do so.’

‘I do not want to hear about what you call “your love”. Don’t you understand, Princess? I am warning you, as I have warned you before, but this time with all the urgency in my power and with all the authority of your spiritual father, against a sinful association with a married man, against adultery and, if you were contemplating a form of marriage, against bigamy.’

‘He has told me that his wife will refuse to divorce him.’

‘Even if she did, theirs was a sacramental marriage. Divorce would not put them asunder. Do you understand now what you are doing?’

‘You are very hard on me, Father. I was not seeking the discipline of my confessor, I had hoped for the sympathy of a friend. Oh, you promised to be a friend!’

‘Don’t make absurd distinctions, my child. I should be a false friend indeed if I pretended to condone what it is my duty, for the sake of your soul, to condemn.’

‘So you have no pity. You have known me from childhood, you know the life I have led – work, austerity, self-denial – and you know my brother’s life – all pleasure and self-indulgence. Yet I am sure you never speak to him as you have just spoken to me. To him you are all gentleness; for me you have only iron.’

‘Your brother has nothing to do with this and I cannot discuss with you what I say to him. That is solely between him and me. But I will point out to you that you have misunderstood. I am divulging no secrets if I admit what you know as well as I do, that your brother had weaknesses inherent in the nature of a young man, and that he sometimes succumbs to the temptations to which, by this nature, he is exposed. I cannot tell you how I see fit to deal with his lapses. But your problem is different and far more serious. You are setting yourself up to
judge
what is right and what is wrong. Your sin is the sin of the fallen, the sin of rebellion and of pride. You assert that what you are doing is right and that you are justified in so doing. You tell me that you refuse to repent and do not desire absolution.’

‘As yet, Father, I have done nothing.’

‘What you are thinking, then, of doing? Where, my poor child, is the tenuous dividing line between the thought and the deed if both spring from the same self-opinionated heart? You could not be convicted in a court of law for what you had thought of doing if you had not done it. But before God? Only if you humble yourself in your heart and pray for grace and help to resist your thoughts when next you kneel at the altar of Our Lady – then indeed you may pray in thankfulness that your thoughts have not culminated in action. And now, Princess, I will leave you. Don’t think I don’t know I have caused you pain. It is necessary pain. Pray, my child, and God bless you.’

After Father Jahoda had gone, Nina sat rigidly in her chair, clutching the armrests and staring at the faintly-lit window, for the room was now quite dark. Then tears began to run, like hot raindrops, out of her open, unblinking eyes. Silently, unmovingly, without distortion of feature or gesture of body, she wept. But she was quite sure. She did not repent.

Twenty-three

Professor Adler had not been near the Western Station since that grey day in March – what a long time ago it seemed – when he arrived there at the bare platform, in a waste of emptiness and desolation, ruined stonework and improvised wooden constructions. During his wanderings through the city and out into the suburbs and surroundings he had avoided this district and the approaches to the station. The first shock he received there had gone too deep, his first disillusionment had not healed, and that initial and almost irresistible impulse to escape, to run away from the disappointments of which this place had given him a bitter foretaste, would, he felt, be revived if he returned there. And in spite of everything he had been determined to stay.

Now, as he entered the new building, the sun was shining. The great entrance hall was high and full of light. Its shell was finished, though the various offices, kiosks and furnishings of a modern railway station were still under construction, but it was already functioning well despite some improvisations. It was Saturday and a bright spring morning: crowds of people thronged through the hall towards the fresh concrete platforms, men and boys in grey loden or leather shorts, girls in country-style dresses, older women in tight-fitting jackets, all leaving the city on excursions to visit the family in country towns and villages or returning home to the provinces after a stay in the capital on private or official business. Cheerfulness reigned, purpose and vitality propelled the people who jostled their way good-humouredly through the barriers. Hesitating, diffident, looking cautiously right and left, Adler felt himself surrendering to the light-hearted mood, felt a sense of belonging, and realised he was smiling.

He had every reason for doing so, for there, coming into the hall and looking a little bewildered herself, was the Princess Nina, Fräulein Grein to him no longer, dressed in grey loden with green lapels and carrying, actually carrying, not only a handbag for a day excursion, but a small case suitable for a longer journey. For a moment Adler watched her before she saw him; he enjoyed knowing that she was looking for him, that in a minute they would be together and together would go through the gate and get onto the train. There! She was coming towards him. He went to meet her, to take her case, while she only pretended to protest: ‘It is so light, no trouble to carry – Herr Professor. Have I kept you waiting? I hope I’m not late?’ Just words, to cover up embarrassment.

‘We’re in plenty of time for the train. I’ve got the tickets.’

‘Really? I was just going to get mine.’

‘No, no you must allow me,’ and turning sideways to have them punched he said, ‘please call me Kuno – Nina.’ And so they went through the barrier and got into the train a little out of breath, as if they were both barely twenty instead of fifty and thirty-four.

They could only get seats in the middle, facing each other, for the train was very full and all four corners, those by the window and those next to the corridor, were already occupied. Adler had taken second-class tickets; it had not occurred to him to do otherwise for, since his return, he had got used to cutting his personal requirements to the simplest acceptable standard. For a moment, as they entered the compartment and he saw how hemmed in they were going to be, he had qualms – but then he saw how Nina had pushed her way in with a smile and an ‘allow me’ as a matter of course, and realised that she who called herself Fräulein Grein would not have expected to travel first-class. So they sat opposite each other with their elbows close to their sides and both were really rather glad that, being so situated, they could only exchange glances and a few non-committal remarks fit for all the other travellers to hear, while inwardly marvelling that they were actually going away together.

Conversation between the two groups with whom they were sharing the compartment, a family of four and a young couple, soon became lively. They were telling each other where they were going, unwrapping sandwiches and fruit, and Nina and Adler were soon being asked to help themselves out of a bag of cherries. Adler declined rather stiffly, but Nina graciously accepted three or four to be companionable. When the smell of garlic sausage became overpowering, her request that a window be opened was cheerfully complied with, and when the draught made the paper wrappings flutter and caused a greasy one to fly across the compartment into someone’s face, this gave rise to a great deal of laughter.

Then, all at once, their destination was called out, and they clambered down the steep steps onto the platform of the little wayside station. The air was clear and heavy with sweetness, the sun was shining and the day was theirs. A little post office bus took them on side roads to a small country town, scarcely more than a village, and deposited them in the market square. Old houses washed in pink and yellow, some with white stucco mouldings over the door and windows, enclosed it on three sides, cobblestones paved it, a curtain of trees on the fourth side afforded a view of a fast-flowing river and wooded hills beyond. They left Nina’s suitcase and Adler’s briefcase at the Golden Ox, whose painted sign crowned the low doorway of the only inn. They would come back in an hour for their midday meal, and meanwhile stroll through the few streets to stretch their legs, leaving the long walk and the sightseeing they intended to do for the afternoon.